How iPad, app stores threaten open source applications

Open source is a rational response to software market failure.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, PC software was dominated by one company: Microsoft.

Rivals couldn’t successfully sell alternative applications in the face of Microsoft’s monopoly power. Start-ups could get neither market traction or access to capital to grow their businesses.

Open source bypassed the compromised normal channels

By doing away with prices and distributing online, open source undermines Microsoft’s marketing and bypassed normal channels.

But developers need to eat. Free doesn’t buy much food.

Today Microsoft is no longer dominant. And thanks to Apple’s iPhone app store, which now extends to the iPad, individuals or small teams of developers can easily enter the software market.

Competition returns to the software sector

With other companies, including Microsoft, also offering app stores, we are about see a thousand flowers bloom.

There will be app store millionaires. But more importantly there will be many developers who can now use their skills to put bread on the table. Their good ideas can be rewarded.

The bazaar now challenges the cathedral.

But there is a downside. With developers able to make a living from their art, they will have less time and even less motivation to work on open source projects.

Some will survive on idealism, but if a developer has a bright new idea tomorrow, do you think it will see the light as an open source giveaway or as a $0.99 app store download?